LA homelessness official signs $2.1 million contract for nonprofit where her husband works in senior leadership

Ian Haworth

Feb 27, 2025

Want to make a ton of cash? Forget lottery tickets or meme-coins: just hop into bed with a politician in California and wait for the money to pour in.

In the state's latest glaring display of ethical negligence, Va Lecia Adams Kellum, chief of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA), has been caught red-handed signing a $2.1 million contract with Upward Bound House.

The problem? Her husband, Edward Kellum, just happens to hold a senior position at the same non-profit!

This blatant conflict of interest not only violates LAHSA's own ethics rules but also undermines public trust in an agency that's already plagued by mismanagement. Despite a clear directive from LAHSA's governing commission in August 2023, which explicitly barred Adams Kellum from executing contracts involving her husband's employer, she proceeded to authorize the agreement just months later.

The documents show that Va Lecia Adams Kellum, chief executive of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA), signed a $2.1 million contract and two other contract amendments with Upward Bound House, the Santa Monica-based nonprofit where her husband Edward Kellum works in senior leadership. The contract names Adams Kellum as the LAHSA official authorized to administer it.

The hustle stops for no-one, folks!

LAHSA has a whopping $875 million annual budget — with Adams Kellum's base salary being $430,000 per year — despite homelessness rates exploding in Los Angeles.

Where is all the money going? Who knows.

This is totally on-brand for California. Gavin Newsom ran for Mayor of San Francisco on ending homelessness, and then became Governor after … not ending homelessness.

And when homelessness makes Democrats millions of dollars, why would they do anything about it?


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